Lamentations 1


Jerusalem in Affliction


The Sorrows of Captive Zion
¹ How lonely sits the city
        That was full of people!
        How like a widow is she,
        Who was great among the nations!
        The princess among the provinces
        Has become a slave!


        ²She weeps bitterly in the night,
        Her tears are on her cheeks;
        Among all her lovers
        She has none to comfort her.
        All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
        They have become her enemies.


        ³Judah has gone into captivity,
        Under affliction and hard servitude;
        She dwells among the nations,
        She finds no rest;
        All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.


        ⁴The roads to Zion mourn
        Because no one comes to the set feasts.
        All her gates are desolate;
        Her priests sigh,
        Her virgins are afflicted,
        And she is in bitterness.


        ⁵Her adversaries have become the master,
        Her enemies prosper;
        For the LORD has afflicted her
        Because of the multitude of her transgressions.
        Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.


        ⁶And from the daughter of Zion
        All her splendor has departed.
        Her princes have become like deer
        That find no pasture,
        That flee without strength
        Before the pursuer.


        ⁷In the days of her affliction and roaming,
        Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
        That she had in the days of old.
        When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
        With no one to help her,
        The adversaries saw her
        And mocked at her downfall.


        ⁸Jerusalem has sinned gravely,
        Therefore she has become vile.
        All who honored her despise her
        Because they have seen her nakedness;
        Yes, she sighs and turns away.


        ⁹Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
        She did not consider her destiny;
        Therefore her collapse was awesome;
        She had no comforter.
        "O LORD, behold my affliction,
        For the enemy is exalted!"


        ¹⁰The adversary has spread his hand
        Over all her pleasant things;
        For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,
        Those whom You commanded
        Not to enter Your assembly.


        ¹¹All her people sigh,
        They seek bread;
        They have given their valuables for food to restore life.
        "See, O LORD, and consider,
        For I am scorned."


        ¹²"Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
        Behold and see
        If there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
        Which has been brought on me,
        Which the LORD has inflicted
        In the day of His fierce anger.


        ¹³"From above He has sent fire into my bones,
        And it overpowered them;
        He has spread a net for my feet
        And turned me back;
        He has made me desolate
        And faint all the day.


        ¹⁴"The yoke of my transgressions was bound;
        They were woven together by His hands,
        And thrust upon my neck.
        He made my strength fail;
        The Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.


        ¹⁵"The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst;
        He has called an assembly against me
        To crush my young men;
        The Lord trampled as in a winepress
        The virgin daughter of Judah.


        ¹⁶"For these things I weep;
        My eye, my eye overflows with water;
        Because the comforter, who should restore my life,
        Is far from me.
        My children are desolate
        Because the enemy prevailed."


        ¹⁷Zion spreads out her hands,
        But no one comforts her;
        The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob
        That those around him become his adversaries;
        Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.


        ¹⁸"The LORD is righteous,
        For I rebelled against His commandment.
        Hear now, all peoples,
        And behold my sorrow;
        My virgins and my young men
        Have gone into captivity.


        ¹⁹"I called for my lovers,
        But they deceived me;
        My priests and my elders
        Breathed their last in the city,
        While they sought food
        To restore their life.


        ²⁰"See, O LORD, that I am in distress;
        My soul is troubled;
        My heart is overturned within me,
        For I have been very rebellious.
        Outside the sword bereaves,
        At home it is like death.


        ²¹"They have heard that I sigh,
        But no one comforts me.
        All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
        They are glad that You have done it.
        Bring on the day You have announced,
        That they may become like me.


        ²²"Let all their wickedness come before You,
        And do to them as You have done to me
        For all my transgressions;
        For my sighs are many,
        And my heart is faint."

Lamentations 2


God's Anger with Jerusalem


God's Anger with Jerusalem
¹ How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
        With a cloud in His anger!
        He cast down from heaven to the earth
        The beauty of Israel,
        And did not remember His footstool
        In the day of His anger.


        ²The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied
        All the dwelling places of Jacob.
        He has thrown down in His wrath
        The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
        He has brought them down to the ground;
        He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.


        ³He has cut off in fierce anger
        Every horn of Israel;
        He has drawn back His right hand
        From before the enemy.
        He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
        Devouring all around.


        ⁴Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
        With His right hand, like an adversary,
        He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;
        On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
        He has poured out His fury like fire.


        ⁵The Lord was like an enemy.
        He has swallowed up Israel,
        He has swallowed up all her palaces;
        He has destroyed her strongholds,
        And has increased mourning and lamentation
        In the daughter of Judah.


        ⁶He has done violence to His tabernacle,
        As if it were a garden;
        He has destroyed His place of assembly;
        The LORD has caused
        The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
        In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.


        ⁷The Lord has spurned His altar,
        He has abandoned His sanctuary;
        He has given up the walls of her palaces
        Into the hand of the enemy.
        They have made a noise in the house of the LORD
        As on the day of a set feast.


        ⁸The LORD has purposed to destroy
        The wall of the daughter of Zion.
        He has stretched out a line;
        He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
        Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
        They languished together.


        ⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;
        He has destroyed and broken her bars.
        Her king and her princes are among the nations;
        The Law is no more,
        And her prophets find no vision from the LORD.


        ¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion
        Sit on the ground and keep silence;
        They throw dust on their heads
        And gird themselves with sackcloth.
        The virgins of Jerusalem
        Bow their heads to the ground.


        ¹¹My eyes fail with tears,
        My heart is troubled;
        My bile is poured on the ground
        Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
        Because the children and the infants
        Faint in the streets of the city.


        ¹²They say to their mothers,
        "Where is grain and wine?"
        As they swoon like the wounded
        In the streets of the city,
        As their life is poured out
        In their mothers' bosom.


        ¹³How shall I console you?
        To what shall I liken you,
        O daughter of Jerusalem?
        What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
        O virgin daughter of Zion?
        For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
        Who can heal you?


        ¹⁴Your prophets have seen for you
        False and deceptive visions;
        They have not uncovered your iniquity,
        To bring back your captives,
        But have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.


        ¹⁵All who pass by clap their hands at you;
        They hiss and shake their heads
        At the daughter of Jerusalem:
        "Is this the city that is called
        "The perfection of beauty,
        The joy of the whole earth'?"


        ¹⁶All your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
        They hiss and gnash their teeth.
        They say, "We have swallowed her up!
        Surely this is the day we have waited for;
        We have found it, we have seen it!|"


        ¹⁷The LORD has done what He purposed;
        He has fulfilled His word
        Which He commanded in days of old.
        He has thrown down and has not pitied,
        And He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you;
        He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.


        ¹⁸Their heart cried out to the Lord,
        "O wall of the daughter of Zion,
        Let tears run down like a river day and night;
        Give yourself no relief;
        Give your eyes no rest.


        ¹⁹"Arise, cry out in the night,
        At the beginning of the watches;
        Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
        Lift your hands toward Him
        For the life of your young children,
        Who faint from hunger at the head of every street."


        ²⁰"See, O LORD, and consider!
        To whom have You done this?
        Should the women eat their offspring,
        The children they have cuddled?
        Should the priest and prophet be slain
        In the sanctuary of the Lord?


        ²¹"Young and old lie
        On the ground in the streets;
        My virgins and my young men
        Have fallen by the sword;
        You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
        You have slaughtered and not pitied.


        ²²"You have invited as to a feast day
        The terrors that surround me.
        In the day of the LORD's anger
        There was no refugee or survivor.
        Those whom I have borne and brought up
        My enemies have destroyed."

Lamentations 3


The Prophet's Anguish and Hope


Hope and Relief Through God's Mercy
¹ I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
        ²He has led me and made me walk
        In darkness and not in light.
        ³Surely He has turned His hand against me
        Time and time again throughout the day.


        ⁴He has aged my flesh and my skin,
        And broken my bones.
        ⁵He has besieged me
        And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
        ⁶He has set me in dark places
        Like the dead of long ago.


        ⁷He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
        He has made my chain heavy.
        ⁸Even when I cry and shout,
        He shuts out my prayer.
        ⁹He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
        He has made my paths crooked.


        ¹⁰He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
        Like a lion in ambush.
        ¹¹He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
        He has made me desolate.
        ¹²He has bent His bow
        And set me up as a target for the arrow.


        ¹³He has caused the arrows of His quiver
        To pierce my loins.
        ¹⁴I have become the ridicule of all my people--
        Their taunting song all the day.
        ¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,
        He has made me drink wormwood.


        ¹⁶He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
        And covered me with ashes.
        ¹⁷You have moved my soul far from peace;
        I have forgotten prosperity.
        ¹⁸And I said, "My strength and my hope
        Have perished from the LORD."


        ¹⁹Remember my affliction and roaming,
        The wormwood and the gall.
        ²⁰My soul still remembers
        And sinks within me.
        ²¹This I recall to my mind,
        Therefore I have hope.


        ²²Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed,
        Because His compassions fail not.
        ²³They are new every morning;
        Great is Your faithfulness.
        ²⁴"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
        "Therefore I hope in Him!"


        ²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
        To the soul who seeks Him.
        ²⁶It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
        For the salvation of the LORD.
        ²⁷It is good for a man to bear
        The yoke in his youth.


        ²⁸Let him sit alone and keep silent,
        Because God has laid it on him;
        ²⁹Let him put his mouth in the dust--
        There may yet be hope.
        ³⁰Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
        And be full of reproach.


        ³¹For the Lord will not cast off forever.
        ³²Though He causes grief,
        Yet He will show compassion
        According to the multitude of His mercies.
        ³³For He does not afflict willingly,
        Nor grieve the children of men.


        ³⁴To crush under one's feet
        All the prisoners of the earth,
        ³⁵To turn aside the justice due a man
        Before the face of the Most High,
        ³⁶Or subvert a man in his cause--
        The Lord does not approve.


        ³⁷Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
        When the Lord has not commanded it?
        ³⁸Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
        That woe and well-being proceed?
        ³⁹Why should a living man complain,
        A man for the punishment of his sins?


        ⁴⁰Let us search out and examine our ways,
        And turn back to the LORD;
        ⁴¹Let us lift our hearts and hands
        To God in heaven.
        ⁴²We have transgressed and rebelled;
        You have not pardoned.


        ⁴³You have covered Yourself with anger
        And pursued us;
        You have slain and not pitied.
        ⁴⁴You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
        That prayer should not pass through.
        ⁴⁵You have made us an offscouring and refuse
        In the midst of the peoples.


        ⁴⁶All our enemies
        Have opened their mouths against us.
        ⁴⁷Fear and a snare have come upon us,
        Desolation and destruction.
        ⁴⁸My eyes overflow with rivers of water
        For the destruction of the daughter of my people.


        ⁴⁹My eyes flow and do not cease,
        Without interruption,
        ⁵⁰Till the LORD from heaven
        Looks down and sees.
        ⁵¹My eyes bring suffering to my soul
        Because of all the daughters of my city.


        ⁵²My enemies without cause
        Hunted me down like a bird.
        ⁵³They silenced my life in the pit
        And threw stones at me.
        ⁵⁴The waters flowed over my head;
        I said, "I am cut off!"


        ⁵⁵I called on Your name, O LORD,
        From the lowest pit.
        ⁵⁶You have heard my voice:
        "Do not hide Your ear
        From my sighing, from my cry for help."
        ⁵⁷You drew near on the day I called on You,
        And said, "Do not fear!"


        ⁵⁸O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
        You have redeemed my life.
        ⁵⁹O LORD, You have seen how I am wronged;
        Judge my case.
        ⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance,
        All their schemes against me.


        ⁶¹You have heard their reproach, O LORD,
        All their schemes against me,
        ⁶²The lips of my enemies
        And their whispering against me all the day.
        ⁶³Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
        I am their taunting song.


        ⁶⁴Repay them, O LORD,
        According to the work of their hands.
        ⁶⁵Give them a veiled heart;
        Your curse be upon them!
        ⁶⁶In Your anger,
        Pursue and destroy them
        From under the heavens of the LORD.

Lamentations 4


The Degradation of Zion


Zion Degraded
¹ How the gold has become dim!
        How changed the fine gold!
        The stones of the sanctuary are scattered
        At the head of every street.


        ²The precious sons of Zion,
        Valuable as fine gold,
        How they are regarded as clay pots,
        The work of the hands of the potter!


        ³Even the jackals present their breasts
        To nurse their young;
        But the daughter of my people is cruel,
        Like ostriches in the wilderness.


        ⁴The tongue of the infant clings
        To the roof of its mouth for thirst;
        The young children ask for bread,
        But no one breaks it for them.


        ⁵Those who ate delicacies
        Are desolate in the streets;
        Those who were brought up in scarlet
        Embrace ash heaps.


        ⁶The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people
        Is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
        Which was overthrown in a moment,
        With no hand to help her!


        ⁷Her Nazirites were brighter than snow
        And whiter than milk;
        They were more ruddy in body than rubies,
        Like sapphire in their appearance.


        ⁸Now their appearance is blacker than soot;
        They go unrecognized in the streets;
        Their skin clings to their bones,
        It has become as dry as wood.


        ⁹Those slain by the sword are better off
        Than those who die of hunger;
        For these pine away,
        Stricken for lack of the fruits of the field.


        ¹⁰The hands of the compassionate women
        Have cooked their own children;
        They became food for them
        In the destruction of the daughter of my people.


        ¹¹The LORD has fulfilled His fury,
        He has poured out His fierce anger.
        He kindled a fire in Zion,
        And it has devoured its foundations.


        ¹²The kings of the earth,
        And all inhabitants of the world,
        Would not have believed
        That the adversary and the enemy
        Could enter the gates of Jerusalem--


        ¹³Because of the sins of her prophets
        And the iniquities of her priests,
        Who shed in her midst
        The blood of the just.


        ¹⁴They wandered blind in the streets;
        They have defiled themselves with blood,
        So that no one would touch their garments.


        ¹⁵They cried out to them,
        "Go away, unclean!
        Go away, go away,
        Do not touch us!"
        When they fled and wandered,
        Those among the nations said,
        "They shall no longer dwell here."


        ¹⁶The face of the LORD scattered them;
        He no longer regards them.
        The people do not respect the priests
        Nor show favor to the elders.


        ¹⁷Still our eyes failed us,
        Watching vainly for our help;
        In our watching we watched
        For a nation that could not save us.


        ¹⁸They tracked our steps
        So that we could not walk in our streets.
        Our end was near;
        Our days were over,
        For our end had come.


        ¹⁹Our pursuers were swifter
        Than the eagles of the heavens.
        They pursued us on the mountains
        And lay in wait for us in the wilderness.


        ²⁰The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD,
        Was caught in their pits,
        Of whom we said, "Under his shadow
        We shall live among the nations."


        ²¹Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
        You who dwell in the land of Uz!
        The cup shall also pass over to you
        And you shall become drunk and make yourself naked.


        ²²The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished,
        O daughter of Zion;
        He will no longer send you into captivity.
        He will punish your iniquity,
        O daughter of Edom;
        He will uncover your sins!

Lamentations 5


A Prayer for Restoration


Prayer for Restoration
¹ Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us;
        Look, and behold our reproach!
        ²Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens,
        And our houses to foreigners.
        ³We have become orphans and waifs,
        Our mothers are like widows.


        ⁴We pay for the water we drink,
        And our wood comes at a price.
        ⁵They pursue at our heels;
        We labor and have no rest.
        ⁶We have given our hand to the Egyptians
        And the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.


        ⁷Our fathers sinned and are no more,
        But we bear their iniquities.
        ⁸Servants rule over us;
        There is none to deliver us from their hand.
        ⁹We get our bread at the risk of our lives,
        Because of the sword in the wilderness.


        ¹⁰Our skin is hot as an oven,
        Because of the fever of famine.
        ¹¹They ravished the women in Zion,
        The maidens in the cities of Judah.
        ¹²Princes were hung up by their hands,
        And elders were not respected.
        ¹³Young men ground at the millstones;
        Boys staggered under loads of wood.
        ¹⁴The elders have ceased gathering at the gate,
        And the young men from their music.


        ¹⁵The joy of our heart has ceased;
        Our dance has turned into mourning.
        ¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head.
        Woe to us, for we have sinned!
        ¹⁷Because of this our heart is faint;
        Because of these things our eyes grow dim;
        ¹⁸Because of Mount Zion which is desolate,
        With foxes walking about on it.


        ¹⁹You, O LORD, remain forever;
        Your throne from generation to generation.
        ²⁰Why do You forget us forever,
        And forsake us for so long a time?
        ²¹Turn us back to You, O LORD, and we will be restored;
        Renew our days as of old,
        ²²Unless You have utterly rejected us,
        And are very angry with us!